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Strategy
See also: * Sale and Special Analysis * The High Cost of Expansion Spending (or Not Spending) Playing for Free It is very hard to play for free, but possible. Patience is key. * You can gain pickaxes by downloading free games sponsored by Rockyou (a couple of Rockyou games give the most for the least amount of work) and free Tapjoy games. * If you download Rockyou games, remember that they are trying to get you addicted to more games. * If you use Tapjoy, please read the page first for information and warnings. * Use the Daily Bonus Wheel. It pays limited gold and pickaxes, but the spins are free. * You will probably need to avoid Limited Edition Series (LE) by not planting first crop. ** Every LE starts with planting a crop. Tap the series icon to see what crop to avoid. ** As long as you don't plant it, you don't do the LE. * Avoid playing mini-games, planting gold seeds, paying to open crates, and jackpots, even if they promise big pickaxe winnings. If you ever heard the saying "The house always wins," you should know it applies here. The odds heavily favor Rockyou in all mini-games. * Possible times to play minigames (you will get less for more, but sometimes the exchange is worth it): ** You have excess gold and need pickaxes *** "Punch Out" and "Pick Your Prize" ** You have excess pickaxes and need gold *** Open river crates Paying to Play If you use your money on the game, use it on Pickaxes, Gold, or Energy. Silver and Tonic can be obtained free with some effort. * Decide how much to spend and how often. Look at the Resources page for the regular prices. You can watch for a sale, which will generally be a bundle sale. These give you pickaxes, gold, and a lesser resource at a discounted price. * Pickaxes get you through the game. Gold gets you extras. In a few circumstances, 2 Gold are required to get through the game. This is a small amount easily obtained through Tapjoy. Energy can help you improve your score and ranking in Team Challenges. * Allocate an amount (Some people spend $3 to $20 periodically) for Regular Quest Series. They get you through the story and get you Regular Quest Series Buildings, including the Specialized Structures. These will require almost no gold. Many require pickaxes, usually no more than 15 but rarely as many as 17. Some don't require gold or pickaxes, enjoy! **If you run out if pickaxes mid-series, you can come back to it later. Regular Quest Series do not expire. * Allocate an amount for Limited Edition Series (LE's). Choose an amount you can afford. ** Raeyin recommends avoiding all but your favorite LE's. Based on the number released and what it costs to play, it would cost about $60 a month to play each LE and buy its house. This is excessive for most players. ** Since LE's do provide buildings you will never see again, choose some based on your budget and the buildings you want most. When you do them, only buy the house if it is a house you particularly want. ** Avoid any LE by not planting the crop in its first quest. ** If you have two LE's requiring the same crop, you can spend two gold to start one you want and avoid one you don't want. ** If you run out of pickaxes mid-LE, you will have a half-finished structure and wasted pickaxes. You can sell the half-finished structure when the LE expires, but this situation can be avoided by planning ahead. You can also extend the LE when it expires for 4 or 6 gold, giving you infinite time to gain the needed pickaxes. ** You usually don't have to spend gold on an LE. It often says to buy the house, but really, you can skip it (2 gold) or ignore it (annoying). Please see How To Play an LE Without Spending Gold. Note that occasionally, an LE is set up differently and ignoring the house doesn't work. Skipping it is still an option. * Visit the Sale and Special Analysis page to help you maximize sales Helpful Tips to Avoid Needless Spending and Stress Explore the Right Place *Old Mine quests look like a small picture of the Old Mine. *Once you get the train, always explore in the right location! Look at the icon on the left. Canyon quests will be brown, Snowy Mountain quests blue, and El Dorado quests gold. Buttons *'Many things, especially quests, have a "Buy all items" button. Don't tap it. It will spend gold quickly, usually on things that are easy to get.' Quests *If a Regular Quest Series tells you to build or buy something, don't sell it afterward! There is a very good chance you will need it again. You will often need to re-visit or re-use: **Regular Quest Series Buildings (which generally can't be sold anyway) **Buildings **Houses (ones that cost silver) **Specials **Decor **Trees *Exceptions to the rule: **Crops **Anything from a Limited Edition Series Free Spins Every day, a Bonus Wheel will appear for you to take your chances and spin the wheel for free! The more days in a row you log on, the more spins you get per day, up to five! *Note: If you can't find the cart', '''tap the triangle on the right. If the wheel is available, you will see a colorful wheel icon. *Once you log off, the wheel will wait 24 hours. After that time, the next time you log in, it will appear again. Tonic * You can speed up the completion of anything, including regeneration time, using Tonic *In general, 4 Tonic save you 1 minute *That is 240 per hour *There is a very useful exception, and that is the '''final minute' of any, which costs only 1 Tonic to complete rather than the expected 4. *This is especially useful in speeding up Crops and Trees that take only a minute or 30 seconds to harvest. *You will be earning Tonic much faster than you can ever spend it in this manner, so never hesitate to speed up that final minute on anything. * A good way to collect tonic is to create a Tonic Farm! Using the Wagon Tent that produces 1 tonic per minute you can start stockpiling tonics. No need to add the outhouses and fire. Silver *Always keep your helpers busy: If you're coming back to the game in 4 hours, plant 4 hour crops. Keeping them busy (especially overnight) is the best way to generate enough Silver for quests, decor, and everything else you need it for. *You can always sort out a small Silver shortage quickly by planting Maize or Wheat. As described above, because of their 30 second harvest time they can be harvested instantly at a cost of only 1 Tonic. * So, for a cost of 1 Tonic you gain 10 Silver, in the case of Maize, and 5 Silver in the case of Wheat. *This also works with Apple Trees, which gives 6 Silver. But you either have to plant an orchard, or spend another 1 Tonic to skip the regeneration time. * If you have gold to spare and need silver, look at the Trees. The trees that cost gold are very generous with their silver, especially the Peach Tree (Lvl 6). You can also wait for a gold sale when the trees will usually be marked down anywhere from 40-50% in order to save on gold. Another alternative is to save up silver and purchase a Banana Tree (Lvl 22) or Coconut Tree (Lvl 24). The downside is that the first watering time is about 1-2 days for Banana and Coconut trees. After that you can harvest it in an hour. Pros & Cons of planting Apple/Orange trees Pros: * No need to go to the Catalogue every time you want to make Silver; * No extra tapping to plant * Apple Tree regenerates in 30 secs * Apple/Orange Trees will give 5 freedom when first planted, crops offer no freedom Cons: * Takes up precious space * Apple Tree makes 6 Silver per minute vs 20 Silver per minute with Maize * Need to harvest Apple Tree 4x in order to pay for itself * No Collectables from Apple Trees whereas with Maize you add 1 raw Maize to your inventory. Debris For the last couple of months, rock debris and sand debris have been missing. Some Quest Series are not possible without them. No solution is known at this time. ~Raeyin~(Wall)~ 23:08, October 4, 2015 (UTC) *Be sure to collect the desert shrubs (green bushy clutter) and rocks until your wood and iron stores are full. You need a lot of those early in the game. *When you are doing Sergio's Trailsweeper series, collect all of the sand piles you see. *You can collect all of the debris type you need, leaving other debris in place. Then close and reopen your game. Any debris you left will be randomly changed and redistributed. Some will have changed into the type you need. *If you collect sagebrush and don't like chasing the snakes, just let them go. They're only worth a tiny amount of silver and experience. *If sagebrush occurs in a small area (1 to 4 squares) that is completely surrounded with structures, the snakes will stay in that area, making much easier to catch. *In a 1 square area, the sagebrush may not disappear when you tap on it, but it has changed (as far as the game is concerned) to snakes. Just keep tapping on it until it stops giving out silver. Useful bugs Never post any useful bugs. This will only cause them to be corrected by the developers. Do not post them here, in forums, or on Facebook. Category:Tips/Strategy